Reel Steel: Alice Englert

Actress Alice Englert spins her cinephile family spirit into two stirringly authentic performances

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As a self-proclaimed "airport baby," actress Alice Englert, 18, grew up accompanying her parents—Palme d'Or–winning director Jane Campion and filmmaker Colin Englert—around the world on their moviemaking projects. But it was the days when she would fake sick to skip school and bundle up in the back of her mother's editing room that gave her a crash course in authentic storytelling. "I became obsessed with the subtlety and nuance of what went into a story," she says, "the shape and weight of it."

That insight landed Englert in director Sally Potter's Ginger & Rosa, a drama set in 1960s Britain. Englert "values instinct," says Potter, "following what's going on inside [her character's] head or heart at any moment." Elle Fanning plays an anxious antinuke protester (Ginger) and Englert portrays her coolly aloof best friend (Rosa) as their closeness crumbles under personal and political turmoil. In one pivotal scene populated by the likes of Annette Bening and Oliver Platt, it's Fanning and Englert who own the show, playing off each other from across the room. As Fanning grows hysterical, Englert responds with reptilian stillness. "There was this joke that every year we'd have a reunion and do that scene again," says Englert. "It was so difficult."

Next month, Englert brings her aplomb to Beautiful Creatures, based on the YA bestseller, as a magical girl who can control the weather. Costar Emma Thompson calls Englert a "beacon of startling originality and truthfulness" in the thick of supernatural spectacle. But Englert won't reveal the recipe for her alchemy: "It's not what you see on-screen that makes a performance. It's the things you should never know about—it's the secrets."